Is the an acceptable background for my Black Templar army?

[Inquisitor Ehrenstein]

The way this works is the Black Templar crusade is from a sector that has an extremely non psychic population; everyone is like Tau and instead of psykers they have nulls.  They work closely with the Inquisition and have their own minor ordo.  Because of this the Black Templars set up a crusade there, which has been inducted into the service of the Inquisition.  The questionable part is having the male nulls be made into Space Marines for the crusade, so it's something like an anti psychic version of the Gray Knights on a smaller scale without the silliness.

[Zeuspro]

To my knowledge theres never been any mention of null-marines. but its your fluff and your little men so run with it :)

 

For me the test is always "Would I be embarressed explaining this to a stranger at a gaming club?" because whats the point in having fluff if you cant share it with your opponant?

[Olis]

The way this works is the Black Templar crusade is from a sector that has an extremely non psychic population; everyone is like Tau and instead of psykers they have nulls. They work closely with the Inquisition and have their own minor ordo. Because of this the Black Templars set up a crusade there, which has been inducted into the service of the Inquisition. The questionable part is having the male nulls be made into Space Marines for the crusade, so it's something like an anti psychic version of the Gray Knights on a smaller scale without the silliness.

From what I recall from the fluff, Nulls or Blanks are extremely rare. While one in ten thousand of imperial citizens is a psyker (which may or may not be an asspull on my part) or at least a nascent one, Nulls occur (ballpark figure) once in a billion. If that. Having a non-pychic population could be viable for several reasons but there'd still be humans with souls and there'd still be, maybe, one or two Nulls/Blanks (at a push) for every billion+ people there are. The Inquisition would be interested in Nulls, in a similar vein to Eisenhorn being interested in gathering blanks - for use in inquisitorial work.

Pretty much the only two useful things here are 1) a Black Templar crusade being inducted into the Inquisition and 2) a Null space marine. Such a beast would be supremely rare and likely would be subject to the same sort of misfortune/prejudice he suffered as he was a child. Chances are, such a space marine has never existed but the possibility can't be ruled out. Regardless, anti-pyschic counterparts to Grey Knights just won't fly, I'm afraid, if you're looking to make this as 'authentic' as possible.

Apologies for pooh-poohing your idea, brother.

[Inquisitor Ehrenstein]

I think the test of whether you can explain it to someone at a hobby store without it being silly is a good test.  Sometimes people can be uptight about canon on the internet, but most people IRL aren't interested in the details of your army.  If your army is too far gone that it becomes a joke in your hobby store, than it's probably gone to far.  Reminds me of something that we purged from the fanfiction wiki...  It was really bad, worse than the Blood Tide.

 

Nulls in this one sector have increased, though there are no psykers.  If 1 in 10,000 people are psykers, than the number of nulls is less than that.  I wrote up an article about null populations.  While I agree that there's the possibility for null marines, I think the concept of implementing them would be overpowering.  The same ordo also has a large force of untouchable stormtroopers, which is its main fluff attraction.  As an administrator, I wouldn't stop someone from writing about untouchable marines within reason, but implementing them could seem a bit Matt Wardish.

[Growler67]

There is a Null Marine assigned to the Kill Team in "Deathwatch".  A member of the Exorcists Chapter IIRC.  Based on the book, he was assigned to the Kill Team specifically for the mission because of his being a null......it proved advantageous as well.  While I think the premise of such a Chapter would be a stretch, mostly because they would have a singular and specific mission profile and the Imperium set up the Astartes (for the most part) to be able to take on the variety of foes to mankind.  Yes there are Chapters that have specializations against the different races/species of enemies, they do not fight ONLY those specialized entities.  That kind of specialized focus belongs to the Inquisition and the many varied ways they prosecute thoses enemies.  An entire Chapter would indeed raise suspicion among the Astartes as well as the Senatorum Imperialis and Inquisition.  The later pair of which would impose a great deal of scrutiny over their inception as well as the possibility of potentially nefarious loyalty to the Imperium of Man.

 

Interesting concept to be sure and you get points for that.  However, justifying it against existing fluff would be a hard sell.....especially to anyone who is well versed in the ways of the Inquisition.  Single Marines would be more viable as there is precident, but an entire Chapter is just too much of a stretch.  The Exorcists as is making their tithe to the Mechanicus not to mention other Chapters that fringe with questionable geneseeds, cultures and practices.  The Black Dragons are another that are likely under constant and heavy scrutiny.

 

Reconciling your intentions/concept against existing fluff and plausibility (barring precident) is going to be the hard sell.  If you can write it up creatively enough and with the proper amount of validation is going to be the tricky part.  As is with what you have presented, I'm not buying it.  Doesn't mean without the proper amount of depth and creativity my mind wouldn't be changed.

[Inquisitor Ehrenstein]

The whole crusade for the sector might not be chapter strength.  Regardless, it might be better to have only a few squads or companies be psychic nulls.  Additionally, the background for nulls in the sector establishes that there are relatively few male nulls, so after selecting them to function as commanders for the Ordo Scharzenkommando, there would be even fewer to make into space marines.  Maybe having a single company that is spread out across various worlds could do?  I'll work on writing up the background and making sure that there's an interesting explanation for all of this.